


Remember

by Kirstein_and_Arlert



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Secret Avengers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-02-16 01:32:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2250867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirstein_and_Arlert/pseuds/Kirstein_and_Arlert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is important, he has to remember this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remember

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Помни](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2774690) by [naid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/naid/pseuds/naid)



His name is Tony Masters, his name is Tony Masters, his name is –

 

 

There was a woman and she shot him. He remembers being worried. He remembers thinking that she couldn’t be dead, and then—

He wakes up in a morgue and he remembers everything.

It comes back in fragments, like putting a torn piece of paper back together. No. A broken mirror. Tony remembers his name, he remembers his wife, he remembers his daughter, he remembers his job—

 

 

The same woman who shot him, years ago, with her hair tied back in a ponytail. She’s a fighter, better than all the others he’s teaching, smarter as well, and she’ll go far. She smiles when he says so, strikes when he isn’t paying attention.

“My name’s Bobbi by the way,” she grins as he gets to his feet. “Just so you know who just kicked your ass.”

She wins five of the ten fights. He only lets her win the last one.

 

 

Tony was a good person. Tony was a bad person. Taskmaster was a good person. Taskmaster was a bad person.

He was a criminal, an agent of SHIELD, even a hero for a few minutes on a beach.

Tony writes down as much of it as he can. His parents’ names, his daughter’s name, his wife’s name, the names of every person he’s trained as an agent and as a criminal.

 

 

There was another woman, long before that day at SHIELD Academy. Her name is Mercedes, and Tony loves her more than he’s ever loved anyone. She is beautiful and she is brilliant. He takes her on cheap dates, listens to her story of her earliest, most upsetting memory, and promises to never leave her.

She cries when he brings out the ring.

She cries when he doesn’t remember.

 _I’m your wife_ , she says, dozens of times.

Tony wants to tell her that he knows, that he remembers, but he never does.

She always cries when he doesn’t remember. Sometimes he does as well.

 

 

Tony watches Mercedes from a distance. She’s walking through a park, holding the hand of a small girl with red hair. He doesn’t recognise her and, for once, this means that he’s never met her.

Her daughter, maybe with a new boyfriend or a husband, maybe part of a normal life. Tony smiles. Mercedes has something real, someone who won’t forget her because he wanted to be the best.

He writes her a note and slips it inside her favourite book. She’ll look there. She likes to read one of the chapters every night.

 

 

It happens piece by piece again. Tony feels things falling away, small parts coming away from his broken mind. He forgets his parents’ faces. He forgets the way his wife smiled, he forgets her _name_.

“No,” he whispers, scrambling for the napkins in the diner. He needs to write everything down, everything and anything he can remember. He doesn’t know where his notes are – did he lose them or did someone take them?

 

 

There is a girl with black hair who looks just like her mother. There is nothing of Tony in her face, and he’s almost grateful. The abilities, people might connect, if they’re smart enough. But no one will ever look at her and think, _oh, she’s Tony Masters’ daughter_.

In a few hours, Tony Masters won’t even exist.

He’s met her before. He’s forgotten her before. And he will forget her again.

He doesn’t say anything to her.

 

 

Tony Masters was full of himself, he was cocky and selfish and stupid, and Tony doesn’t want to be him again.

He doesn’t want to be Taskmaster either.

 

 

“It’s an unusual side effect to a gunshot wound to the head,” the woman says. She has long blonde hair, and Tony _knows_ her, has seen her before. He remembers being worried, he remembers that she shot him. But why? Why did she shoot him and not kill him?

He wants to say _Who the fuck are you? How did you get in my hotel room? Why are you here? How do you know this?_

“How?” Tony asks instead.

“No idea. I think that it must have scrambled your brain just enough to put it right for a while.”

“But I’m forgetting things again, why am I forgetting?”

She looks sad, this woman whose name he should remember. Tony wonders why she’s sad when he’s the one who’s losing his memories. “Your brain is healing, putting everything back in its right place. And that means that your mind is going to return to normal. Well, its version of normal. Soon, you’ll forget everything.”

“No,” he whispers. “Please, you have to do something. Shoot me again. Anything. Just—just make me remember. Make me normal. Please.”

The woman says nothing.

Where does he know her from? There was a woman who cried because he didn’t remember her, but this isn’t her. That woman had dark hair. This one… He can feel her fading from his memory. She sat on a beach once, and he remembers being worried and then… Nothing.

That’s all that’s going to be left soon. Nothing.

“My name is Tony Masters,” he whispers. “My name is Tony Masters, my name is Tony Masters, my name is Tony Masters. I have a wife, and a daughter. My parents… I have a wife and a daughter, and I love them both. I used to work for SHIELD. My name is Tony Masters.”

She turns away, shaking her head sadly. “Not for long. For what it’s worth… I’m sorry.”

Tony feels something in his mind break.

 

 

He wakes up with a sword beside him, a staff, and more guns than even he needs. There is a note as well. He doesn’t know who left them, he doesn’t know where he is, he doesn’t know _who_ he is.

He knows that he’s done something wrong, something terrible, and the feeling curls in the put of his stomach.

There is a single piece of paper nearby. The word ‘Taskmaster’ is written on it, and it rings a bell. His name, maybe?

There’s a voice in his ear, a woman who calls herself the Hub, and she sounds like she’s going to cry when she says, “I have a mission for you.”

 

 

His name is Taskmaster.


End file.
